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I will soon be graduating, and I have been working mostly remote with a company as an application developer for about 4 years since my freshman year of college, doing enterprise-level development while pursuing my degree.

I have always been interested in business management/administration since my freshman year in college but never got the chance to pursue anything, and I would also like to eventually take my side projects to the next level and begin my own company.

I am wondering if it would be worth my time and money to pursue an MBA once I graduate while I work full time at my current job? The money will not be an issue, granted spending $90,000 will be no easy feat. Are my chances going to be good to get into an MBA program even though I do not have that much post-undergrad work experience?

The SMU, Cox School of Business (my ideal choice) offers a Professional MBA program for working professionals but it says the average work experience is 6 years, and I will only have 4 years by the time I graduate, so I am unsure if this will make it hard for me to get in.

EDIT:

I would hopefully be applying almost as soon as I graduate.

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When you say you are interested in business, do you mean you want to be a manager? Or in finance? Or are you "academically" interested and you simply want to learn about things like OB, finance, accounting or Ops?

If the latter, then I suggest online personal enrichment programs (like coursera, etc.).

If the former, then an MBA may be worth the time and money; many companies want people with an MBA for certain positions (this is especially true of consultancies). Other companies view MBAs as a cliched, cookie-cutter education and avoid them.

You need to figure out what kind of career path you want and do some research regarding the benefits of having an MBA for that path.

As a datapoint: I am a programmer with an MBA (from a top 40 US university). It was not worth it.

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  • The managerial side of things, C-Suite
    – cela
    Jun 1, 2018 at 19:46
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    In that case, if you pursue an MBA, take all the OB/soft skills classes you can, and keep in mind a lot of it is theoretical BS. (I worked at a company where the CEO had an MBA from HBS; he often reminded us that 2/3 of HBS is 'BS'.)
    – user1008090
    Jun 1, 2018 at 19:50
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I would hold off, but if you want to transition to the business side the MBA will help. A CS degree with no work experience is not really helpful in the industry and you will get further if you have the background of developer work before doing the transition. Most decent schools will want you to have work experience before doing an MBA.

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  • I have been working remote as an applications developer since my freshman year of college, and by the time I graduate, I will have 4 years of industry experience working in a medium-sized company. Should I still hold off based on the fact it is not post-undergrad experience?
    – cela
    Jun 1, 2018 at 20:01

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